When travelling from Austria to Italy, many of us will use the Brenner Pass. The Stubai Alps are directly west of this famous pass. Further west still, one enters the Ötztal. The Stubai is a well known and popular hiking area. It's only an hour's drive from Innsbruck.

These high mountains of rock (granite, schist, gneiss) and ice offer many walking possibilities. The Stubaital is still strongly glaciated and provides opportunities for high Alpine tours. Other valleys are less glacier-clad. A network of paths and huts make an ideal area for many beautiful walks.

The valleys are something special too. Their character is typical Tirol: distinctive villages, farms with flower-hung balconies, wooded mountain slopes and above them the snow-capped mountains with peaks as Zuckerhütl (3507 m).

One of the most popular hut-tours in Austria, the nine-day Stubaier Höhenweg is a versatile walk for anyone with a good condition and without vertigo.